


the fall of a sparrow

by JPlash



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Major Character "Death", Major Character Grieving..., Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JPlash/pseuds/JPlash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His hands are dry and cold and when he can breathe again, he's in his armchair, and nothing, nothing is sane anymore.</p><p>Richard Brook is the lie, not Sherlock Holmes, and if John has to rip the world apart to prove it, then his laptop is as good a place to start as any.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fall of a sparrow

**0.**

_And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.  
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,  
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. _

***

**I.**

The first time John turns on his laptop, it is the next day and the telly says his blog is "a work of fiction" but the case is over so he goes there to write it up because that's how they do this. He starts four times in his head, false starts he doesn't type, and then there is really only one thing to say. He says it in one sentence and links for clarity because he's a good blogger and this is their income, not 243 types of tobacco ash. Then he shuts the top and stands and turns around and outside the apartment he walks and after a bit it gets dark and then he keeps walking.

***

**II.**

The second time John turns on his laptop, it is 2 weeks and it feels like holding a dead man's hand. He presses his palm to the keys like they're still warm, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 5, then snatches it away like he's touching bare bones. He can almost feel the ash falling through his fingers.

It's just a laptop, not even—it's _his_ laptop, not even—and it is—not sane. to feel guilt for pulling away. John pushes out the chair and stands up and backs away from the desk like it will make the feeling go.

His hands are dry and cold and when he can breathe again, he's in his armchair, and nothing, nothing is sane anymore.

***

**III.**

The third time John turns on his laptop, he winds up at tobacco ash. Mycroft has locked posting on the site, John thinks he might remember being told that but it's irrelevant. It's hardly likely to be anyone else. So there are no new forum threads, no clamour; there are some posts, from the beginning of the fallout, abuse and taunts and a few staunch supporters. But there's nothing from the last almost three weeks, and John has never had much patience with the forums anyway. Sherlock's 'Analysis of Tobacco Ash' is top listing on the front page of the site, ongoing case, reinstated post-deletion at John’s urging after the sulk became too much to bear. Ongoing case. Well. Sherlock's got his best man on it, hasn't he?

John reads the research posted thus far, carefully, details. He knows where to find the working notes, too, buried in the maze on his computer of folders that aren't his, and there's a list, combinations yet to be tried of tobacco type and smoking apparatus and this variable and that. A list to check off. Well. Good.

When John has five little mounds of ash, he watches them for seven hours. Possibly he dozes, for part of it. He compares them from the middle distance. He stares at them up close, nose tickling. He tastes with the tip of his tongue, uses a magnifying glass and then a microscope. The microscope is good; there's sort of a difference, under the microscope. To the naked eye, they look the same. They taste the same, smell the same, once they're ash.

To his eye. His taste, his smell.

Sherlock's 'work in progress' catalogues 243 types of ash, all different in minutiae. But Sherlock doesn't have his best man on it, not anymore, because his best man isn't here. Sherlock's best man is Sherlock, and that means Sherlock's best man is—and John can't make it right because they all taste the same on the tip of his tongue, like ash and burned and dead things.

The website is locked but John knows all Sherlock's passwords and he opens the 'tobacco ash' entry and he doesn't backspace but he types an addendum in caps without looking at the keys – RESEARCH DISCONTINUED DUE TO LACK OF HUMAN RESOURCES.

Then he does backspace, his words, and the rest of it, all of it, back to deletion, DELETED, gone, because what does it matter? Who could use it? Who could be that clever? 243 types of tobacco ash. Not him. Not John Watson.

***

**IV.**

The fourth time John turns on his laptop, it's five weeks, and Sherlock was never a magician, and it was never miracles. But never lies—not lies that lasted, not longer than an experiment or an excuse and they're hardly lies when he expects them, are they? and—expected. Expected them. Experiments and excuses not to go out for groceries. It's five weeks, and John corrects himself. 'Expected'.

And then he breathes, and then he touches the keys with his palms, once, and then he types into the google bar "Rich Brook".

The first page is all Sherlock; the first ten pages are. 'Rich' Brook and Sherlock and Moriarty. Nothing he hasn't seen and heard before, and one day he will snap and destroy them all until his knuckles bleed but not today. Today is for research.

Richard Brook is the lie, not Sherlock Holmes, and if John has to rip the world apart to prove it, then google is as good a place as any to start.

John scrolls back to the search field, and adds 'NOT Sherlock'.

The first listing is the results of a school swimming carnival circa 1980s, Rich Brook second place and a photo, a young Moriarty maybe 12 with a red second place ribbon. John notes down the school, the names of the other boys, saves the photo. If the boys exist, with those names, went to that school, either they'll prove the photo's faked, or they'll know the boy with the red ribbon wasn't called 'Brook'.

The second listing is a review of Hamlet, produced by the Partington Theatrical Society, Benedict Motts outstanding in the role of the ill-fated prince, Rich Brook an unexpected highlight as Hamlet's uncle. Another photo, among a cluster, mostly blurry—the Prince of Denmark pondering whether to be or not to be, Horatio the standing stone of the epilogue, the usurper King with the vague shapes of Moriarty's face.

John screencaps the whole thing. Partington is too obvious. With any luck, there is no Partington Theatrical Society. Or maybe if there is, they might have these photos without that face...either way, any way, it's a review, from a newspaper, which means there will be records for it not to match, John can prove something from this, can trace this, can use this, because he wasn't Sherlock Holmes's best man for nothing, and none of it was ever, ever a lie.

The third listing is 'The Reichenbach Falls', which means it's Sherlock and actors and lies and Moriarty and it's as he's scrolling past it down to the next search result that John sees it, and stops, and breathing in is a different thing to what it was a moment ago, and breathing out is almost, almost what might have been human.

 _Meaning 'rich brook', Reichenbachfall is one of the highest and most spectacular waterfalls to be found anywhere in the Alps. Made conveniently accessible via funicular railway, a Swiss experience in its own right, the falls are a perfect choice of destination for the casual sightseer or the dedicated explorer. Plan a trip to enjoy this peak of the region's scenic beauty, to marvel at the inspiration for Turner’s painting, or even to discover how the falls are used to create hydro-electric power_ …

'rich brook' is highlighted; search term found.

'rich brook' is 'reichenbach'

and there are swimmers who never knew a Richard at school and actors who never played opposite a Brook and none of it matters because 'rich brook' is 'Reichenbach' and

John was right

was right was right was right was right and

none of it was a lie, not ever.

Not ever.

Not his Sherlock.

  



End file.
